Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, has been announced as the winner in the Climate Greenwash Award 2009 at a ceremony in Copenhagen.

“Vattenfall, which won with 39% of the vote (about 2000 votes cast), was nominated for “its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

The energy company also played a key role in setting up the World Business Summit on Climate Change through the Combat Climate Change – a lobby group established by Vattenfall to promote the “climate-friendly technologies” such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear power, which are the company’s preferred options for tackling climate change.”

Climate Greenwash Awards Coordinator Kenneth Haar congratulated Vattenfall for their hard (read: dirty) work which resulted in their first place. Haar also gave a special mention the Danish Government for giving these dirty corporations easy access to the climate talks:

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In this video George Monbiot, Britain’s leading green commentator, meets with Jeroen van de Veer who is the chief executive of oil giant Shell. Monbiot asks the oil giant about ethics, greenwash advertising, renewable energy investments and gas-flaring in Nigeria.

Click here to watch the interview on the Guardian!

Related News: The latest deadline set by the Nigerian government to stop flaring natural gas from oil wells in the Niger Delta has passed without stopping the flames, which campaigners say are poisoning local people.

Sir Mark Moody-Smith, former Shell chairman, wants the EU to ban inefficient and gas guzzling luxury cars. What’s so special about this is not that he is a former Shell chairman but that he defends his viewpoint in a most refreshing and social way:

It is a social thing. We don’t say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn’t say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire – we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

BBC has the whole story. Greenpeace UK have also covered the statement.

Shell, the major oil company, has decided to adopt algae for its diesel production. The company has already begun the construction of a pilot plant in Hawaii.

Growing algae as biofuel will not be taking valuable land areas that are needed to grow food on. Thanks to algaes impressive photosynthesis it will produce 15 times as much oil for a given area compared to other biofuel crops. Algae can also be fed CO2 directly from smokestacks.

So, has Shell finally seen the green light? Far from it actually.

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